Sunbed safeguards would tighten rules for commercial tanning businesses. At last, the industry’s most trusted professional may need to be more than a timer with the emotional range of a microwave.
The government announced proposals on 24 January to strengthen protections around commercial sunbed use in England. They include supervised sessions and mandatory ID checks for people under 18, with a consultation planned for spring. This is sensible public health policy, although it does expose the curious possibility that some premises have been operating on the principle that a laminated warning is a qualified member of staff.
Existing law already bans people under 18 from using commercial sunbeds. The proposed changes target rogue operators who continue to sell sessions to teenagers. The rules have not yet come into force, which gives the tanning industry a little time to study the phrase “mandatory supervision” and decide whether it refers to a person, a poster or the employee who has been hiding behind the till.
At the fictional Office of Controlled Glow, inspectors welcomed the proposals while removing a novelty pair of sunglasses from the compliance folder. “A timer is excellent at timing,” said Lucinda Lumen, Director of Buttons With Limits. “It cannot check identification, explain the risks or tell a customer that the deluxe package does not include legal immunity.”
Commercial businesses will be asked to consider clearer procedures, proper age checks and supervised sessions. None of this is especially radical. Yet every new rule creates a brief period in which a company can describe an ordinary precaution as an unprecedented attack on the freedom of a machine to be left alone in a warm cupboard.
The consultation will seek views from businesses about the costs and practicalities of the proposed safeguards. This is where the paperwork may become genuinely exciting. A salon could soon need a trained adult, a functioning process and evidence that somebody has looked up from the reception desk before allowing a customer near equipment that emits a recognised cancer risk.
Some operators may protest that a responsible adult is an expensive luxury. Others may discover that the person already accepting payments can also read an identity document, explain a warning and remain in the same building as the customer. This would make the reception desk less a decorative shrine to administration and more a workplace.
Sunbed safeguards therefore offer a modest administrative miracle. They ask a business built around artificial sunshine to bring one real adult into the room. The timer has been offered counselling, a revised job description and a final warning for pretending it was ever in charge.
Source: Department of Health and Social Care.
